


Only human after all

by Stiinescense



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Canon, Protective Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25617739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stiinescense/pseuds/Stiinescense
Summary: Joe had been on the store for only half an hour, but it was enough. They had taken Nicky.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 17
Kudos: 179





	1. Chapter 1

Nicky comes to with a start.

He is laying on hard concrete floor, feeling disoriented and lost. It all comes back to him when he hears the laughter above him. They had taken him, from their home while Joe was in the store.  
“Six times and counting. Might as well empty this whole clip on you”, states a rough looking man, standing beside Nicky with a pistol in his hand, fingers covered in massive rings. Nicky remembers he introduced himself as Kamal. There were at least five others, standing around him and chuckling.  
That made Nicky suddenly aware of the sticky feeling of blood on his face, hair and neck. He rolled to his side, trying to feel the back of his neck only to find out his hands were tied together with several zip ties.  
“Don’t worry, you’re all right. Not even a scratch on you”, says Kamal, still standing beside him, seeming amused by Nicky’s state. They have been shooting him. Through his head, point blank like an execution. Six times and counting. Nicky doesn’t know whether it’s for experimentation or pure sadism.  
“Let’s film the next one, shall we? It will be a nice little surprise for your precious boyfriend”, the man says maliciously. He crouches beside Nicky, takes a hold of his hair and yanks him from the floor to a kneeling position.  
“He has seen me die a thousand deaths, what makes you think this is special?”, challenges Nicky, still having his head held up by a rough hand.  
“I think we both know the answer to that question. He’s not here, is he?” And with that Kamal releases Nicky’s head and stands up. He gestures another man forward. He’s a bit younger, in his early twenties maybe. In his hands he has phone, held horizontally, ready to film what was about to happen for the seventh time.  
“Would you smile for the camera, Nicky?”, asks Kamal while raising his gun to rest against Nicky’s temple.  
“Never”, he answers, though still looking at the phone, determination in his eyes as a loud bang echoes trough the room.

\---

Joe took his time in the store, trying to find a certain kind of pesto that Nicky likes to use. They were planning to spend the evening at home, cooking and watching movies, since the next day they were leaving to meet the others in France.  
The store was just a few blocks away, so the walk home was fairly quick. He walked up the steps to their apartment, only to find the door ajar. A sudden terror filled him.  
“Nicky?”, he called into their apartment, setting the groceries on the floor by the door and reaching for his gun, hidden underneath his jacket.  
“Nicky, you here?”, Joe asks again, advancing through their small home, checking behind every corner, gun pointed ahead. He steps into the bedroom, and his heart sinks. As the living room was just as he had left it, the bedroom was another story. Furniture turned over, their belongings scattered on the floor. But by far the worst thing was the blood, splattered across their bedsheets, on the wallpaper, on the carpet. It looked like someone had been shot several times, and then left on the floor to bleed out. It wasn’t hard to figure out who it had been.  
Joe tucked his gun back into its holster and took out his phone.

“Andy?”, he asked in a hurry, wanting to get to the point as fast as possible.  
“Yeah, what’s up?”, Andy asks, already slightly alarmed by the tone in Joe’s voice.  
“Nicky’s been taken. I was away for half an hour, and he’s gone. There’s blood everywhere”  
“Joe, calm down. We’re on our way, we’ll drive. It’ll take some time tough, can you wait for us?”, Andy asks nervously, since she knows how hard it is for Joe and Nicky to stay apart.  
“Yeah, okay. I’ll try to see if they left behind any clues”, Joe says, trough gritted teeth. He doesn’t want to just sit around, but he knows nothing about who took Nicky and why. It’s better to wait.  
“Joe, hang in there. We’re coming”, Andy states and the call ends. Joe is left standing in the bedroom, surrounded by the crimson on the walls.

\---

They left him alone after the 12th shot trough his head. Apparently, it wasn’t as entertaining as they had originally thought. Now he’s sitting against the cold stone wall, hands chained above his head, a bandanna tied around his head, making him unable to see anything around him. They had tried to blind him by stabbing him in the eyes, but of course, they had healed. He preferred it this way.  
He was exhausted by dying repeatedly, so he welcomed the peace and quiet. And of course, slowly, his thoughts drifted to Joe. How would Joe feel when he found out Nicky’s gone? Is he already looking for him? Did he get the video of him being shot? How can he handle this?  
It’s common for Nicky to feel worse about Joe than himself in a situation like this. He thinks it goes both ways. They have always been very protective over each other, even though they were both immortal. But at some point, when you have been with someone for over a millennium, you start sharing each other’s pain. He knows that whatever hurts him, will hurt Joe tenfold. So, it is not just awful romanticism, it’s a display of their unique connection.  
He makes a tentative pull on his restraints, but they are tight around his wrists and bolted to the wall. Now that he has gotten some rest, the constant darkness starts to bother him.

\---

Joe has gone through their apartment for at least a dozen times. He has checked everything, anything that would give him a clue about where Nicky has been taken. Nothing. He has found absolutely nothing, and now he’s just pacing around the living room, having gotten sick of the sight of Nicky’s blood in their bedroom.  
His phone buzzes. He checks it instantly, expecting an update from Andy, who must be in Italy already. But it’s not Andy. Joe opens the message from an unknown number. “How many times do you think it will take?”, says the text. Attached to the message is a video. Joe feels his heart race and the phone in his hands trembles slightly. He doesn’t want to, but he has to. He plays the video.  
There, right before his eyes, he can see Nicky. He’s on his knees, looking to his right as if someone was standing there. He’s covered in blood, it’s all over his face and shirt. It makes Joe feel uneasy. Then, he can see a gun being pressed on his temple. Joe flinches, but Nicky doesn’t. A few seconds pass, and it feels like eternity. “Would you smile for the camera, Nicky?”, he can hear a man ask over the phone. Nicky turns his gaze to the camera. “Never”, Nicky says, brows furrowed, a fire in his eyes. The gun goes off without warning, and Nicky falls limply to the floor. The video ends.

  
How many times do you think it will take?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I need Booker for this, so I turned it into pre-canon. Whoops.

When Andy finally arrives to the apartment, the night is already turning into morning, light bleeding from behind the horizon. She had to take a detour to pick up Booker on the way, since they were already planning to meet up in France and his tracking skills won’t hurt.  
When they open the apartment door, a dismal sight welcomes them. It’s Joe, sitting on the floor, head in his hands. His phone is laying on the floor next to him.  
“Joe? You okay there?”, Andy has to ask, even though she knows the answer. Joe slowly raises his head from his hands, eyes red and puffy. There is a painful look on his face. Andy crouches beside him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. Booker silently goes trough the apartment, making sure Joe didn’t miss anything. He closes all the curtains and makes sure the door is locked.  
“You’re here now. I will be alright when we have found Nicolo”, Joe states with a tired tone in his voice while he grabs his phone and rises from the floor.  
“All clear”, Booker says as he comes back to the two.  
“Yes, I didn’t find anything. But there is something else you should see”, Jos says, handing his phone to Booker. He walks away a few steps, not being able to watch again. “It’s in the messages”, he says, voice trembling slightly.  
Booker quickly opens the message Joe is talking about and reads it out loud, barely a whisper: “How many times do you think it will take?”. He then holds the phone in front of himself and Andy, so that she can also see.  
“What’s in the video?”, Andy asks. Booker clicks on the video and they watch it together in a perfect silence. It’s over in less than ten seconds, but it’s still horrible, still painful and still feels like a stab in their stomachs. But they can’t afford to wallow in it right now.  
“This is a clue. I might be able to track it. Just let me get set up”, Booker says, already opening his bags and pulling out a computer, with various other devices. Andy walks up to Joe, looking apologetic as she’s also about to start working, regardless of the state of Joe.  
“Tell me what happened, an exact timeline. We’ll go from there”, Andy says to Joe as they settle around the kitchen table.

\---

Nicky is surrounded by darkness. He’s cold, and alone.  
“There… other ways… efficient”  
“Can’t waste… will take forever…”  
“Need’s to… constantly… -ke shifts…”  
With a little gasp he feels himself wake up. The words weren’t from his dream after all. He can hear the low voices coming from the other side of the room. There’s Kamal, and someone else. It must be next morning already, since he feels a bit less tired but still all kinds of uncomfortable. He tries to stretch his arms even a little bit, to get some blood flowing to his fingers that are now hanging numbly over his head. He hears footsteps approaching him.  
“Welcome back Mr. di Genova. I’m sorry about the rather poor setup, but you must understand that we can’t have you just laying around on the floor, a dangerous man like you”, Kamal says with a brief chuckle. Even though Nicky can’t see him, he can perfectly imagine the look on his face. Nicky just huffs.  
“I hope you still got some rest, since I have made some new arrangements for you”, as Kamal says this, Nicky can hear several other people entering the room. They gather around him and Kamal.  
“Okay, let’s do this. A quick move”, Nicky can hear Kamal ordering the others. There is a little shuffle around him and then there’s the taser, stuck to his side with a high voltage. Before he even realizes, they get his hands detached from the shackles on the wall and tied back together. They hold him by his arms and carry him out of the room, turning left and then right. Then they stop, and he’s hauled on what feels like a metal table.  
Nicky’s already recovered from the shock and he starts to kick and struggle as much as he can, feeling like this might be his last chance to get out of there by himself. But there’s no use, since the taser is back and in a second he’s convulsing on the table, body rigid with pain. It stops again, and in a moment he’s tied down on the table. His wrists and ankles held by leather cuffs and bands going over his thighs and chest. The feeling of helplessness consumes him.  
“I bet you are much more comfortable here. Now we just add the finishing touches and we’ll leave you to it”, Nicky hears Kamal say somewhere above him. He feels something being put on his ears. “Earmuffs?”, Nicky thinks, and as the world around him goes silent, he knows he guessed right.  
A tight feeling grips around Nicky’s lungs. No sight, no hearing, not able to move. Is this their plan? Leave him here on this table until he goes crazy from his own thoughts? What could they possibly benefit from that?  
His spiraling thoughts are interrupted, as he feels the final addition being made. Rough hands are wrapping something around his neck. A thin cord, and suddenly it’s pulled tight. He must let out a chocked scream, but he can’t hear it himself. It’s tight, but not tight enough. He struggles, pulling on the restraints as hard as he can. The minutes passing stretch into hours in his mind. Strength slowly leave his body. He’s drowning on dry land, gasping for a desperate breath until he can no longer feel.

He dies yet again.


End file.
